A website that rots falls apart and finally kicks you out.
Legacy
Requiem for a Dream website
A website that rots falls apart and finally kicks you out.
We have worked with Darren Aronofsky since 2000's Requiem for a Dream. The NOAH campaign 2014 marked our fifth collaboration with Darren including The Fountain, The Wrestler and Black Swan.
The site was designed to be an extension of the film on the web and can be enjoyed before, after or independently of the film. The visitor is a character in the story, gradually losing control as they journey through the site. As the film's main leitmotif is addiction and decay, the site became in itself a metaphor for it, as it decays the further you progress in the narrative. The experience is deliberately disorientating and ultimately ends in rejection. We wanted to create a site that rots and falls apart the further you progress, until it finally kicks you out. It was the first time we experimented with interactive non-linear narrative, something that has since become a central element in our work, as you had to find your way through the lead characters' crossing narrative strains. As the film moves from Summer through Fall to Winter, so does the site, accompanied by a colour change from white to grey to black.
Requiem for a Dream website reel
Behind the scenes
We were huge fans of Pi, Darren's previous feature, and completed the concept for the site in close collaboration with him without ever seeing the film. The original 35mm prints were eventually shipped to us in 2 big orange containers and we rented MPC's cinema to watch it - at 9am in the morning. We watched the film like we have never watched a film before, we have yet to see it a second time. RequiemforaDream.com is by far the most emotional and difficult project we have done to date, and our biggest fear was that we wouldn't do the film justice. It set the tone for everything we have done since.
Interview with Alexandra Jugović for Digital Archeology 2010
Requiem for Dream Website reel2
In the final phone conversation between Harry and Marion, we gradually destroy the image throughout, while the sound transitions from 16bit to 1bit.
Beginnings
The whole site was so far removed from what was considered on- line marketing at the time, it's a small miracle Artisan Entertainment (now Lionsgate Films) trusted us, an unknown design team of 2 all the way across the world, to create it. But they did and it proved to be highly successful promotion through the associated press it attracted and eventually earned us a lot of recognition beyond our industry:
Awards and Exhibitions
Awards D&AD Pencil
2 Webby Awards
ADC Europe Gold
ADC Silver
Flash Film Festival
Referenced in numerous online articles, books and magazines.
Exhibitions Our Website for Requiem for a Dream was exhibited as part of "Digital Archaeology" at the prestigious "Digital Revolution" Exhibition at the Barbican, the mostcomprehensivepresentation of digitalcreativity ever to be staged in the UK, 3 Jul-14 Sep 2014. It was also shown at "Communicate: British Independent Graphic Design since the Sixties" also at the Barbican, 16 September 2004 - 23 January 2005
April and November 2017 at 64 Bits,"an exhibition of the Web's lost past " View the site: 64bits
Credits
Created at Hi-ReS! 2000 Alexandra Jugović and Florian Schmitt